Local newspapers – and readers – could use a break

 

Bill Knight column for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, 9-28, 29 or 30

            Legendary newspaperman Harold Evans died last week at the age of 92, having outlived a Golden Age of newspapers.

Newspapers are hanging on, no doubt, but some are on financial life support.

It’s a bit ironic that Evans once criticized the enormously profitable, diversifying U.S. newspaper industry in the 1980s and ’90s, when its profit margins were two to three times the average of manufacturing. (For example, the average operating margin (profit divided by revenue, before taxes) for a U.S. manufacturing company in 1997 was 7.6 percent. The comparable average for publicly traded newspaper companies that year was 19.5%, according to industry analysts Veronis, Suhler & Associates.)

Then, Evans said, “The challenge of the American newspaper is not to stay in business – it is to stay in journalism.”

Now, the challenge, especially for local newspapers, is to stay afloat amid a flood of ignored or unforeseen factors. Otherwise, people may hear about Big News nationally or notice unreliable social-media stories, but they won’t necessarily know about the status of the hometown Meals on Wheels program, neighbors harvesting crops for a recently widowed woman, a café or tavern getting creative during the pandemic, or kids’ music or sports.

Fortunately, a sizable number of members of Congress have crafted a life preserver, the bipartisan Local Journalism Sustainability Act, that could rescue community journalism, local businesses and citizens who need news.

World and national news, plus a variety of opinions, are vital. But also important and enjoyable are obituaries and comics, coverage of arts and work, horoscopes and crossword puzzles, features and photos on food, faith and so much more.

That’s in jeopardy. Newspapers in recent years have lost advertising to the internet, circulation to busy schedules, stability to the uncertainty of the coronavirus’ effects on people’s lives and the economy, and family ownership with roots in communities to corporations whose priority is “streamlining” operations to pay down exorbitant debt and show profits to distant stockholders. Like any companies, newspapers’ layoffs decimate staffs, of course, but at newspapers that means they literally devastate coverage.

As the old business model has disintegrated, communities have increasingly missed out on trustworthy stories produced by people that live, play, work and worship alongside them.

So, many communities have become what’s called “news deserts.” There, regional dailies, the area broadcasters that still have reporters, and cable TV may claim to serve towns, but their content is global, national, state or skimpy; they miss many local celebrations and small-market government, births and deaths, stores’ or streets’ openings and closings, fundraisers and service clubs and churches and school boards and so on: The events that make up Americans’ lives – and futures.

Local journalists don’t spin news to meet some agenda. They’re working to let their neighbors know what’s going on. Studies report a correlation between losing local newspapers and rising costs of government.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act was introduced in July by Arizona Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who got cosponsors Washington Republican Dan Newhouse, five other Republicans and 10 Democrats.

Soon, dozens of members of Congress realized the value – the need – of local newspapers covering public health and public safety, academic and athletic achievements, triumphs and tragedies in neighborhoods that may seem divided between Trump and Biden but have many mutual interests, from clean water and public libraries to tax bills and businesses’ hopes and losses.

As of the day Evans passed away, the bill (HR 7640) had 61 co-sponsors, including 19 Republicans and three members of Congress from Illinois: Cheri Bustos (D-Moline), Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville) and Bobby Rush (D-Chicago).

Politicians who couldn’t agree on lunch found common ground. The bill’s supporters range from Rush, a former Black Panther Party leader, to four members of the House’s Right-wing Freedom Caucus:  Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Tiffany (R-Wis.) and Randy Weber (R-Texas).

Most local newspapers aren’t owned by national media conglomerates, private-equity firms or hedge funds, but by local folks running small businesses, and the bill offers tax relief to them, to other companies, and to subscribers:

* Subscribers to qualifying local newspapers (or their websites), would get a tax credit of up to $250/ year for five years.

* Businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees would get credits of up to $5,000 in advertising costs the first year, and up to $2,500 in the next four years.

* Local news companies would get payroll tax credits to employ and adequately compensate local journalists.

It’s time to support members of Congress who support your getting local news, and to urge those who haven’t stepped up in this bipartisan proposal to do so. It would benefit your pocketbook, your community and your awareness of what’s going on around the corner as well as around the globe.